How Influencers Build Instagram Followings

Phoebe McPherson is a seemingly normal 20-something. She swears by a good early morning sweat sesh, is planning her wedding, and loves eating vegan tacos. She also documents all of this online where she has almost 60,000 Instagram followers and 30,000 pageviews on her blog each month.

For the 23-year-old, she is by all means normal. “When people say I’m an influencer, I’m like what do you mean? I don’t influence anyone,” she said.

Numbers don’t lie, though, and for McPherson (@_honestlythough) they paint a picture of someone who very much influences others. When she created HonestlyThough.org in August 2016 she had less than 500 Instagram followers. In her job as an independent social media consultant she helped one company double their engagement and helped another increase their Facebook engagement by 1,000 percent in three months. She had a restaurant ask her for a meeting to discuss how much their revenue had increased from people who said they heard of the establishment from McPherson’s Instagram account.

A life in social media isn’t what McPherson, who lives 10 minutes outside of D.C., had in mind for herself. She had planned to become a journalist, but when a newspaper internship fell through in college, she found herself in a marketing internship at a startup. She spent the summer building the company’s social media strategy from the ground up and was quickly offered a full-time position. Since then, McPherson has held two other social media marketing jobs, both at software companies.

McPherson said she started Honestly, Though on a whim because “corporate life is really boring and I needed an outlet.” When she launched it she said she was embarrassed about promoting it on social media and kept removing the link from her profile. She said she felt shy about being a blogger, and subsequently an influencer, because she didn’t want people to think she was looking for attention.

“It was something L.A. people do or YouTube people,” she said. “I was like, Phoebe who are you?”

Despite her reservations, McPherson could take an aesthetically pleasing photo and she started gaining some followers. To increase her engagement, she started developing strategy around hashtags and began engaging with people whose content she liked. She said she started gaining followers “in waves” when she posted photos of food and clothing from companies who would repost her. She’s also in Instagram pods where people engage with each other’s content and is a member of influencer networks.

“The dirty little secret no one wants to admit is that I spend hours each day on Instagram — an ungodly amount of hours,” she said.

The time and energy has paid off because in the last year and a half, McPherson has gained thousands of new followers each month. She said she’s sometimes scared by how quickly she gained her following. She recalls being jealous of her younger sister for having around 1,000 followers not that long ago.

“My sister would be getting 300 likes and I’d be like, how’d she do that?” McPherson said. “But now that’s nothing. Now that’d be a bad day for me.”

A good day for McPherson is 1,000-2,500 likes per photo and a couple dozen comments. Her most liked photo, featuring her wearing a bikini on a tropical beach, has over 10,000 likes.

“It’s weird because you feel so vulnerable posting a picture like that,” she said. “Even with so many likes I still wonder if I’m good enough.”

The photo was definitely McPherson’s most revealing, but stayed true to her fun vibe. There’s an aesthetic she strives for in all her photos, which she describes as “cute girl that wears sunglasses and loves food.”

“I try to make myself look cute and approachable, but also always busy and unattainable,” she said. “It’s this weird vibe.”

McPherson said appearing super busy and constantly hustling is important for her brand. She said she replies to followers for the most part, but never right away for fear of seeming too eager.

“It’s like dating,” she said. “You can’t be too available. You can’t be thirsty.”

She is quite busy, though. When she’s not glued to her phone or consulting businesses on social media strategy, McPherson is doing photo shoots, attending blogger meetups, and hashing out sponsorship agreements with companies. When she first started blogging she would send out requests to various companies looking to do sponsorships with them and only a few said yes. Now McPherson’s at the point where companies reach out to her. She’s partnered with brands such as E.L.F, Who What Wear, and Madewell, among many others.

“It’s definitely weird sometimes, but it’s pretty much normal,” she said. “You have to remind yourself that this is what you do.”

McPherson has developed a rate sheet she gives to brands when they reach out to her and said she makes anywhere from $350-$1,000 for an endorsed Instagram post. The cost goes up if the brand wants a carousel post or a corresponding blog post. Between her blog, Instagram, and social media consultancy, McPherson has reached the point where she no longer needs to work a full-time job. She left her safe, yet unfulfilling, job at the end of 2017 to fully pursue her consultancy, Honestly Though Social.

“There comes a point where you realize you can’t grow anymore unless you quit your full-time job,” she said. “You might not make as much money, but you have to take that risk so you can grow. It’s terrifying, but it’s what I love.”

Leaving her job has helped bring more balance to McPherson’s life. Her Instagram feed suggests she leads a perfect life, but she said that’s because “I don’t show photos of me crying or breaking down. I don’t show me at a four and half hour meeting at work.” When she had a full-time job, she said she would pull all-nighters multiple nights each week so she could get everything done and that “it definitely sometimes [got] to be too much.”

On top of everything she’s been juggling, McPherson was also trying to keep her blog a secret from her co-workers. She said when they did find out, “their attitude towards me completely changed” and they were less judgmental when she would do things such as take pictures of her food. She said she didn’t talk about her blog or Instagram at work because she wants people to take her seriously.

“I felt like it was important to keep it separate because I didn’t want higher ups to think it was taking away from my work,” she said.

Being taken seriously and producing meaningful work has weighed heavily on McPherson, especially now that she's left a full-time job behind.

“I’ve had breakdowns and freakouts and wonder, what am I doing with my life? You’re posting on Instagram. It’s so silly,” she said.

McPherson said her background in journalism helps her bring more value to her work, though.

“Something I pride myself on is telling a story,” she said. “A lot of bloggers try to sell clothing and make a quick buck.”

If she can use her platform to inform people and help them make the best decisions for themselves, whether about voting, healthcare, or a product, McPherson said she’s happy. Whatever her future holds, she said her work will always involve digital storytelling.

“People want stories,” she said. “They want stories that entice them and draw them in, but they have to be true. People don’t want fluff. That’s what I see my future revolving around.”

McPherson is on her toes, though, and is prepared to roll with the punches. Just as “Instagram might be dead one day,” she could completely change her mind about her career.